The English version of Wikipedia will join reddit in going dark on Wednesday …

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Seeking to "send Washington a BIG message," Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has announced that the English version of Wikipedia will go dark on Wednesday to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, anti-piracy bills now being considered by Congress.

He said the blackout, which is expected to last 24 hours, was a decision of the Wikipedia community.

"This is going to be wow," Wales wrote on Twitter. "I hope Wikipedia will melt phone systems in Washington on Wednesday."

Wikipedia joins reddit (which, full disclosure, shares a parent company with Ars), which announced last week that it will go offline for 12 hours on the same day.

"Instead of the normal glorious, user-curated chaos of reddit, we will be displaying a simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit," the reddit admins wrote in their January 10 blog post announcing the plan.

The protest was originally scheduled to coincide with hearings that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), a SOPA critic, had planned to hold on the legislation. He called off those hearings on Saturday, however, after the House leadership promised it would "work to build consensus" before bringing anti-piracy legislation to the House floor.

Wales was undettered by this apparent progress, noting that SOPA could still be resurrected, and that its Senate counterpart, the Protect IP Act, is still under active consideration.